Historical Photographs and Multimedia Storytelling
© Charles Williams, 1997
It is difficult to define a historical photograph. Technically, by the time the shutter has completed a pass over the film, the moment is history. By their very nature, all photographs are historical. Webster's New World Dictionary defines "historical" as something based on or suggested by people or events of the past. Still, no definitive time period is indicated. For the purposes of my research, it is sufficient to say historical photographs are those that have documented significant social change or those that were taken in a previous generation.
Likewise, the true meaning of the word "multimedia" is elusive. Multimedia has been defined as any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation and video delivered by computer or other electronic means (Vaughn, 1994). The definition is imprecise but sufficiently differentiates between traditional mediums such as books and new electronic mediums such as movies and CD-ROMs. When discussing historical photographs, it is important to discuss historical film in the same context. After all, they both are multimedia mediums, and film can be viewed as a series of moving photographs.
So how are historical photographs being used in documentary, multimedia work? In the past decade, Ken Burns, Pedro Meyer and Rick Smolan have been among the most influential producers of photography-based multimedia. Burns has concentrated his efforts in the area of historical presentation. Meyer's work has been of a more personal nature and Smolan has acted as an organizer of contemporary work. All three are producing documentary work through the integration of interviews, music, film, video, and historical or contemporary photographs. Because my work most closely resembles that of Burns, he is my primary focus. Burns chooses motion pictures as his form of multimedia presentation, I've chosen CD-ROM. In the end,we both are telling stories.
Storytelling
Australian Aborigines don't rely on written history. Instead, tribal elders have the privilege of verbally passing down stories to future generations. Storytelling is an art to the Aborigines. Inevitably,details are lost in the translation, but the essence of the story remains. Some would argue the same is true of American history. The facts associated with a historical event are infinite. Recording methods have improved, but throughout much of American history, they were primitive. Historical accuracy is always questionable. In addition, the rise of multicultural thinking attests to the growing realization that a lack of historical objectivity existed in the past. Racial stereotypes flourished with films such as D.W. Griffith's"Birth of a Nation" (1915) and David O. Selznick's "Gone with the Wind" (1939). But these movies were feature films, not documentaries. Documentaries are true, or are they? Documentary multimedia productions can be traced back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and Robert Flaherty's "Nanook of the North" (1922). It is a well-known fact that scenes were staged in the documentary. Nanook was asked to repeat routine acts in the summer season when the weather was less threatening. Although scenes were faked, we still gain a sense of life in the Arctic. Other notable documentaries followed,including Pare Lorentz's "Plow that Broke the Plains" (1936) and William Wellman's propaganda-laden "The Memphis Belle" (1944). But during the past century, documentary filmmaking has continued to mature from generations of dull travel and educational films to entertaining, informative works (Cripps, 1995).
The Canadian Film Board's documentary, "City of Gold," (1957) influenced a young Ken Burns. "When I first went to college in 1971, I saw 'City of Gold,' and it used the techniques of first-person storytelling and music in counterpoint to dozens and dozens of frozen images. The camera prowled over the surfaces, moving in and out, so that those dead photos came alive, in a way. I was impressed by that," Burns said (Tibbets, 1996). "City of Gold" told the story of the frontier town of Dawson in 1898, during the peak of the Klondike gold rush. Major television networks such as NBC soon began using many of the techniques seen in "City of Gold" for shows such as its "Project XX" series. "City of Gold" set the standard for good filmmaking and was a breakthrough for documentarians who used still photographs in their work.
Documentary storytellers used television and film as their primary outlets for several decades. But storytelling on film or television has different limitations than new media outlets. Television shows or movies are linear and play for a fixed amount of time. Today's question is how does the addition of interactivity affect the story? Rick Smolan was one of the first to venture into the unexplored field of digital storytelling. His "From Alice to Ocean" CD-ROM chronicled the voyage of Robyn Davidson, a young Australian woman who trekked across the Outback. Smolan used interactivity as part of the experience. "We gave people the opportunity to listen to Robyn or to interrupt her--to have a conversation with her. There are multiple paths through the same story. Readers can follow their own lines of curiosity," Smolan said (Koman, 1993).
But re-packaging content as Smolan did often proves ineffective and unsatisfying to the end user (Little, 1997). Mystery writer and multimedia designer Alan Robbins coined the term"perfluxity" and describes it as a feeling of drowning in information. He wonders if it is possible to tell a good story interactively. Robbins believes the linear approach to storytelling works well for memoirs, short stories, murder mysteries, fairy tales and essays. "You know where you're going and you can't wait to get there. The last thing anyone wants is 45 alternative endings in a digital 'Tale of Two Cities.' What we love about Dickens, for one thing, is his ability to pick the best endings," said Robbins (Robbins, 1995). Robbins believes directing the viewer's attention is an art, and attention to detail and the pace are what defines a master storyteller. The sense of being led is the joy of reading linear stories.
The impact of increased interactivity has yet to be studied. But, no matter what the medium, storytelling elements such as character development and plot are the ones that remain vitally important. That's why many new-media products are adapted from books. Ken Burns believes words are essential, but he also believes words can have a honorable, historical relationship with music, sound effects and the exploration of still photographs (Cripps, 1995). Even so, he is quick to point out the drawbacks of his medium. "I still think the greatest man-made machine in the world is the book, and in no way would I hope to supplant it. ... Film, really, is lacking for rigorous intellectual communication. It just doesn't have the tools because of its temporal nature. That is to say, it has duration," Burns said (Cripps,1995). He compares his films to ballets or symphonies that don't require much intellectual thought and describes them as very emotional, very visceral, very visual.
Thus, the nature of the multimedia delivery device used in storytelling can be overstated. While film and television shows can't be stopped, videotaped copies of them can, and many CD-ROMs simply start Quicktime movies that have the same linear attributes and limited duration associated with film.
Ken Burns
Ken Burns has been at the forefront of historical re-creation. His award-winning work often combines historical photographs with sound in an attempt to resurrect the past. Burns was born on July 29, 1953, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was only 11 when his mother died. He grew up with his father who appreciated history and studied anthropology at Columbia University. Burns attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., where he studied photography. He and his future wife, Amy Stechler, worked together during his senior year and produced a film about Old Sturbridge Village, Mass. He graduated from Hampshire College in 1975 with a bachelor of arts degree in Film Studies and Design.
After graduation, Burns formed his own film company, Florentine Films, and began producing his first film, "Brooklyn Bridge." The film, which took four years to make, eventually was nominated for an Academy Award. His second film was titled "The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God." In 1985, he followed with"Huey Long" and "The Statue of Liberty." Burns would spend the next five years on his most ambitious and successful project, "The Civil War."
The Civil War project began with 16,000 still photographs and 150 hours of film. The final presentation contained 3,000 photos. When it aired in September 1990, it became the most-watched documentary ever shown on public television. The average PBS prime-time rating was 2.2; "The Civil War" received 8.8. In the meantime, Burns also made films titled "Thomas Hart Benton" and "The Congress." In 1992, "Empire of the Air" was released. The film chronicled the history of radio. Two years later in September of 1994, his long-awaited series on baseball premiered on PBS. And finally, he helped produce a series titled "The West."
Choosing the Subject
A strange tension exists between Ken Burns and historical academicians. Burns loves history, particularly American history, but he believes most historians are ineffective storytellers. "We allow the Germanic academic model to overtake our academy and convince historians that they only need to speak to one another. ... The word 'history' itself gives away its primary organization. It's mostly made up of the word 'story,' and we've forgotten to tell stories" (Tibbetts, 1996). Conversely, some historians accuse Burns of seeking a consensus on historical events. But Burns believes he's not seeking a consensus history but instead an emotional consensus about history. "We seek to find a way in which we can include the diverse tributaries of our experience into something that might nourish the whole," Burns said (Cripps, 1995). He views himself as a translator of complex historical subjects and wants all people to enjoy American history. In this vein, he sees himself as an "emotional archaeologist" whose work is used to "provoke a kind of emotion and sympathy" within people (Tibbetts, 1996). "I can't be interested in a piece of history unless there's something I can loosely describe as emotional about it. I think the ordinary person feels that way, too. I think by allowing history to be defined and presented exclusively by the academy, we've bled it of its powerful emotional aspect," Burns said (Weisberger,1990).
History and controversy always are intermingled. Recently, some schools protested against Voyager publishing company's "Who Built America" CD because it introduced issues such as abortion, homosexuality and birth control (See, 1995). These schools are guilty of politicizing history more than Burns.
As is the case with most documentary journalists, Burns walks the line between historian and storyteller. He wants to make history interesting. "I'm a good enough storyteller to make history suspenseful and vital again, not freeze it in its tracks. All good history makes you wait on the edge of your seat, makes you watch from behind the trees, wondering if Pickett's Charge might not really succeed this time. ... That's the greatest moment-- that I can make people think something else might happen, rather than just the history they already know," Burns said (Tibbetts, 1996). But historical documentaries should be true. This simple fact limits creativity for the filmmaker. Unlike feature movies, the ending is apparent in advance. Herein lies the challenge for Burns. Burns crafts his movies in a manner that suspends the viewers' attention. In that suspension of what they know to be the outcome, they participate in a variety of experiences, both intellectual and emotional (Cripps, 1995).
Burns' approach is from the bottom up, using personal stories to humanize larger events. Because personal stories of the past can be similar to those of the present, a bond is formed between generations. In "The Civil War," Burns builds history through the diaries and letters of common Civil War soldiers. "It [film] can be our Homeric form, and we've tried to tell this particular Iliad, our Civil War, in a Homeric way, not only from the aerial perspective of the gods and kings but from the level of the spear carriers as well," Burns said (Weisberger, 1990).
This personalized technique also helps us understand the origins of historical events. In "The West,"Burns tells the story of Charles Goodnight, the Texas rancher who returned from the Civil War only to find cattle prices had plummeted. He drove his herd north and begun the tradition of great cattle drives (Zoglin, 1996). The story of one man reinforces the diligence and fortitude of an entire generation of westward-bound pioneers.
Except in the case of the Civil War, Burns chooses his subjects randomly and intuitively. He feels he was drawn to the Civil War because all his other films had elements that were predicated on events in the war. For example, the steel used to construct the Brooklyn Bridge was invented to produce weapons for the war. The man who completed the bridge, Washington Roebling, was a bridge-building engineer in the Union army. Burns believes the spiritual and psychological effect of the war caused a decline in the Shaker population. The Louisiana parish that Huey Long eventually served refused to secede from the Union. The resulting political environment supported Long's rise to power. Finally, the Statue of Liberty was originally intended as a gift to Mrs. Lincoln to commemorate President Lincoln's assassination and celebrate the preservation of the Union (Weisberger, 1990). Burns always asks a simple question with a very complex answer. "My one question in all my films is, simply, Who are we?" Burns said (Jackson,1994).
General Motors sponsors Burns' attempts to answer the question, yet he feels no pressure from the huge corporation. "I don't tell them how to make cars, they don't tell me how to make films," Burns said (Serafin, 1994). He states that sponsorship has no effect on his work and adds that he is in public television for two reasons. First, nobody can tell him what to do, and second, there is no commercial interruption (Cripps, 1995).
A study of visual techniques
Ken Burns uses still photographs in a manner that enlightens and entertains. He ventures inside the borders of a picture and selectively "burns-in" details into our memory. Burns can isolate a dozen minute details in a Polo Grounds crowd shot that shows reaction to a rookie's pennant-blowing mistake (Waters, 1994). Activity extends beyond the original framing of a scene. The camera can zoom out and reveal a visual irony or zoom in and focus on a person. It can pan and create anticipation. We see the feet, then the body and finally the face. We're never quite sure where a picture starts or stops. It's not surprising that Burns repeatedly has expressed his preference to tell his stories with still pictures rather than motion-picture footage (Tibbetts, 1996). Yet, Burns works in a medium of moving pictures, and at times, he chooses to combine still and moving pictures to create an attention-grabbing effect. In"Baseball," the swing of Ted Williams' bat and speed of Ty Cobb are punctuated by the intrusion of still photographs in a moving sequence. A Burns associate, Mike Hill, states that Burns frequently orders photographers to shoot live-action scenes in a manner similar to taking still photographs. "He wants rock-steady images, minimal camera movement and carefully composed frames. Sometimes, it's difficult to distinguish these shots from still photographs," said Hill (Tibbetts, 1996). In addition, Burns states that he would slowdown film in order to emphasize an effect. "It is, in fact, the slowing down of the Zapruder film which gave the Warren Commission access to the truth of the event," Burns said (Cripps, 1995).
Burns doesn't believe in recreations such as Civil War reenactments. But, he believes literal illustration isn't necessary either. Displaying General Grant's picture every time his name is mentioned is not warranted. Often, he uses photographs as general referents. The same photos of Lincoln and Grant appear in different contexts throughout the series. The same photo of Babe Ruth appears during his hitting heyday, his tantrums and his bout with cancer. But each time, the photo mysteriously seems appropriate in the given context (Tibbitts,1996).
Sound effects are crucial in relaying the visual message. Burns uses sound to imply actions. There are no photographs of Civil War battles, yet the use of sound makes viewers believe there are. We hear balls being hit in "Baseball," but we never see them in the photographs. Burns believes he is gifted and has the ability to look at a photograph and actually hear it. "I hear the loudspeaker and the static in a picture of Huey Long making a speech or the crowd and background noise when Babe Ruth hits a home run," Burns said (Jackson,1994). Inevitably, ethical questions arise. The sound that accompanies most photographs is representative and not actual. While Burns has no qualms about reading one soldier's letter while showing a picture of a different soldier, he hesitates to use the same battlefield scene for two different battles. "What keeps you straight is your sense of honor. It's the guiding light," said Burns (Weisberger, 1990). The essence of the story takes precedent over the creative technique or the medium. "Any historian is doing a re-creation, in a way. They are calling together some facts; they are ordering them in specific way," Burns said (Cripps, 1995).
Likewise, digital technology poses ethical dilemmas in regard to restoration of old photographs. Digital technology provides a means of eliminating distracting elements such as dust and scratches from old and weathered photos. After all, the elements may not have been present on the actual negative, and this is a commonly accepted darkroom procedure. But one must be careful not to lose the "feel" associated with an old photograph. Adobe Photoshop provides a variety of sharpening filters, but how sharp is too sharp? While elimination of blur and grain maybe desirable in contemporary photographs, these elements serve as a testament to the tools of photography for a certain time period and should not be callously discarded. In the final photograph of Lincoln, there is a crack in the plate that runs into his hair. The imperfection is more telling than the artist could have imagined (Thomson, 1990). In the end, restoration is a creative decision that each artist must make.
Editing
Good editing is crucial to good storytelling. Too much editing, and the story falls short. Too little editing, and it becomes tiresome. Enormous numbers of photographs and sound clips must be edited during the production of a Ken Burns' film. For "Baseball," Burns' staff photographed over 4,000 still photographs and examined thousands of newsreels. How does he decide which pictures to use? "I just shoot everything I can. I isolate each photograph and energetically explore its surface with my lens and later make decisions purely on the quality of the image and how I respond to what I find there. You could say I don't choose which ones to use, they usually chose me," Burns said (Tibbetts, 1996).
Burns collects material without regard for the finished product. Simultaneously, his writers prepare a script. Comparing the script to the available photos is a difficult task. Burns describes it as "an incredibly difficult horse-trading maneuver, in which you realize that a whole group of images won't be used because there's nothing [in the script], and a whole lot of words have to go because there's nothing to illustrate them" (Zoglin, 1992). Scenes are cut from films because they simply don't work visually. Time is finite, and the work must flow. Burns views the job of editing as an artistic endeavor. "You chip away at the block of marble, and three-fourths or more of it winds up on the floor as rubble, and it's not reconfigurable. What's left is the film," Burns said (Jackson, 1994).
Rick Smolan believes the editing process is a powerful argument for the advancement of new technology. The photographer and producer of the "From Alice to Ocean" CD-ROM likes to make all the editing decisions when presenting his work. "There are too many editors in the way. If you work for National Geographic, they can only devote so many pages to a story no matter how interesting it is. But with CDs, a story that deserves 500 pictures can have it," said Smolan (Koman, 1993).
Talking heads
Ken Burns likes to do his own interviews. He conducted three-fourths of the 65 interviews in "Baseball." Seldom were the interviews boring. The subjects naturally tended towards poetry and philosophy-- this tells us a good deal about Burns as an interviewer (Thomson,1993). Yet, Burns maintains that interviewees are not lead. "We've never said, 'We want you to say something like this.' I go to an interview with a wide range of questions and then cut it down," Burns said (Cripps, 1995). He also directs the character voices in his movies. In "Baseball," actors included Paul Newman, Tip O' Neill, Gregory Hines, Anthony Hopkins, Jason Robards, Gregory Peck, Julie Harris, Keith Carradine and Paul Winfield, along with commentators Mario Cuomo, George Will, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bob Costas and Billy Crystal.
Burns is a perfectionist and can be demanding. "We begin with 500 or 600 quotes, and we might have four or five readers read the same quote four or five different ways. They have to find the center. You don't want them going over the top dramatically. It's a high-wire act and some can't do it," Burns said (Jackson, 1994). He instructed the narrator, John Chancellor, to read up to 17 takes of a particular paragraph (Waters, 1994). The actor who played Lincoln was told to read the final sentence of the Gettysburg Address in the manner in which it was most likely delivered. The usual emphasis on "by," "of" and "for" was replaced with an emphasis on the subjects of the war, "the people." (Weisberger, 1990).
How important is music? "Baseball" includes 250 versions of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." "Music can determine a scene. I work on music from the get-go," saidBurns (Jackson, 1994).
Historical accuracy
In college, Ken Burns only took one history course -- in Russian history. Even though he consults closely with leading historians, he still is vulnerable to criticism of his credentials. "Take the great documentarian, Ken Burns. What does he really know about baseball? What kind of specialness did his researchers bring to the ballgame? ... If 'Nine Innings' had gone into extra innings, we'd have called it off because of lightness," spouts columnist Herman Maslin (Masin, 1994).
Some scholars have been critical of the historical accuracy of Burns' work (Fowles, 1994). Burns has been accused of having wide-ranging interests but no special expertise in radio history. In his film, "Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio," Burns focuses on three central characters: Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong and David Sarnoff. Jib Fowles of the University of Houston-Clear Lake contends that Burns himself follows a form of racism by excluding inventors who were not American. The Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who devised the wireless communication system and the Canadian Reginald Fessenden, who made it possible for voices and music to be sent over airwaves, are barely mentioned in the film.
Rick Smolan's work also has not escaped criticism from historians. Robyn Davidson's trek across the Australian outback was the subject of Smolan's National Geographic article. But Davidson maintains the objectivity of National Geographic's story is questionable. She believes the photographs are more representative of Smolan's trip than her own (Koman, 1993).
Burns maintains that it is difficult to represent all points of view. He points out the history of the West really is two stories. One deals with the inspiring taming of a new continent, and the other deals with the suppression of a native people (Zoglin, 1996). Furthermore, he believes there is no objective filmmaking. Pointing the camera in one direction excludes information in another. "I think that we have to remember that it's all selection. Just as the scholar, when he writes this sentence, he has not written a hundred million other sentences," Burns said (Cripps,1995).
While the quest for historical accuracy is noble, it is virtually unattainable. Facts are infinite and the means to record them weren't always available. More than a million photographs were taken during the Civil War. Not one is of a battle scene. Burns argues that every shot he used as a battle scene is, from a fundamentalist point of view, a lie. But the possibility of understanding the war increased immeasurably (Cripps, 1995).
Pedro Meyer
While Ken Burns strictly makes historical films, Pedro Meyer and Rick Smolan are using contemporary photographs in their multimedia projects. Pedro Meyer is one of Mexico's most respected photographers. In 1991, Voyager published Pedro Meyer's ground-breaking CD-ROM, "I Photograph to Remember." It is a narrative work combining 100 black-and-white photographs with a spoken narrative by Pedro Meyer. Meyer tells the story of his parents' struggle with cancer. Thomas Luehrsen produced the disc for Voyager. He recalls the recording session when Pedro showed him the photos. "I had a DAT recorder with me to use as a scratch recording, but it was so good that we used most of it in the final product. ... The product's virtue is its simplicity in content and in execution," Luehrsen said (Koman,1993).
"I Photograph to Remember" was a triumph in many ways. It firmly established CD-ROMs as a viable journalistic outlet. Production of the project required a minimal amount of resources. In addition, it ushered in the concept of "personal journalism." A certain arrogance exists among the journalistic community, similar to that of the historical academy. Journalists too often believe they are the only people qualified to report. In some ways, the average person is becoming a journalist. Not in the traditional sense, but the ability of the average person to disseminate information through outlets such as the World Wide Web or CD-ROMs is increasing daily. New family history and genealogy programs are hitting the market ,often in creative forms. "Echo Lake" allows users to store family history books on the shelves of "cabins." Stories in the book can be enhanced with personalized music, narration and video clips. Also available are "Family Tree Maker," "Expert Personal Roots" and "Family Ties" (Trivette, 1995).
Rick Smolan agrees. "My mother is turning 70 soon, and we kids are talking about taking all these pictures we have and putting them on disc and having the whole family narrate them. When the Oakland fire happened, I thought of all the families who lost their wedding pictures, their baby pictures. ... People will do this personal storytelling. And there will be stories that will be published that publishers would never touch," Smolan said (Koman,1993).
Why should we care about Meyer's parents, or Smolan's or mine? Their deaths have no impact on world events. Why should we care about a Czech family coming to America? First and foremost, these are good stories, and that's what journalism is all about. Second, larger issues are at stake, such as the plight of cancer victims or the struggles of immigrants. These types of stories may never see the light of day through traditional media outlets that are concerned with the financial bottom line.
Meyer's project is intensely personal, much as Eugene Richards' and Dorothea Lynch's "Exploding into Life." Nothing is more personal than recording the death of a loved one. Pedro Meyer says the title "I Photograph to Remember" explains his motives. "As a photographer who has entered a lot of other people's lives through my camera, I felt that if I could not capture the images in my own world, I didn't have the right to do it in other people's worlds," Meyer said (Koman, 1993).
The photography in Meyer's project is strong. Meyer's sense of caring is expressed repeatedly through photographs that focus on hands and arms. Fragile hands caressing torsos and hands with bulging veins reaffirm the sense of loss and desperation. His work could very well have been published in a newspaper or magazine. But it is the haunting narration that adds an extra dimension. We not only see the pain--we also hear it. Meyer has been a pioneer in the new field of digital storytelling. He believes CD-ROMs provide substantial benefits over other mediums. "Video doesn't have the quality in sound or image. You can't slowdown, stop or go back. And the narrative quality would be lost in a book," Meyer said (Koman, 1993).
Meyer's other major new media undertaking was "Truths and Fictions: A Journey from Documentary to Digital Photography." In 1987, Pedro Meyer traveled 25, 000 miles across the United States. He created 92 photo illustrations that were displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
Jonathan Green, the "Truths and Fictions" exhibition curator, states that Meyer is "perversely comfortable reprocessing discrete bits of photographic information into new photographic 'facts' in order to make his point...They [the photographs] draw their strength from their relationship to 'photographic reality'," ... "Meyer's photographs usher in a new reality, a new world of digital rather than visual truth" (Green, 1994).
Some would argue that Meyer's works are little more than concocted feature photos. They are art. They are illustrations, but they are not fact. They're no more poignant than photo illustrations of the past. The fact that they were done digitally simply makes them technically better. For all the digital manipulation hype, "Truths and Fictions" falls short of the much simpler "I Photograph to Remember."
Rick Smolan
Rick Smolan uses contemporary photographs in his projects. Some are repackaged works, such as his "From Alice to Ocean" CD-ROM. Nevertheless, he has been at the forefront in seeking out new outlets for documentary work. Smolan has experimented with CD-ROMs, the World Wide Web and the new frontier of self-publishing.
Smolan's most impressive project thus far has been the "Passage to Vietnam" CD-ROM. It includes more than 400 photographs taken by some of the world's most talented photojournalists on a week-long assignment in Vietnam. The project demonstrated an important alternative outlet for documentary photography. Smolan and his partner, Jennifer Erwitt, relied on the efforts of many others. "I bring together skilled people who can breathe life into the blueprints we've created," Smolan said (Hansen, 1995).
He attempted to make the technology as transparent as possible. "What I wanted to create was an experience where you could forget the technology and actually feel like you're on assignment right beside the photographer," Smolan said (Hansen, 1995). Unfortunately, Smolan's digital clone who walks on still photographs not only reminds us of the technology at work but annoys us as well.
Smolan's 'Day in the Life" series was hugely successful. He attempted to harness the same idea in his latest project, "24 Hours in Cyberspace." "We are expanding my 'Day in the Life' concept from documenting a single country to covering the entire world and from a traditional six-month book development schedule to the immediacy of same-day Internet publishing," Smolan says (Hilts, 1996).
During the 24 hours of February 8, 1996, 64 original stories were put online, while 21,221 people signed the visitor guest book of "24 Hours in Cyberspace." The web site (www.cyber24.com) received more than 4 million hits from places as far as Sydney, Tokyo and Johannesburg (Hilts, 1996). The project required a staff of 150 and six months to plan. Smolan sought huge corporate sponsorship. Kodak provided 9,000 rolls of film. Sun Microsystems provided more than 100 SparcStation computers, network servers and advisers, and Adobe systems provided copies of Photoshop and Acrobat. The logistics were enormous. But this volume of technology is unavailable to the average photojournalist. The size of the project makes one wonder if it is financially feasible for the average photojournalist to jump into the technological ballgame.
"24 Hours in Cyberspace" hoped to create online, real-time photojournalism on a global scale (Lottman, 1995). But, Smolan's web site didn't do much more than most news organizations' sites such as those of CNN or Time. They also are updated on a daily basis. For all the razzle dazzel, "24 Hours" didn't prove much.
The Future
In many ways, my project, "Dostal: The first generation of a Czech family in America," is a hybrid of techniques employed by Burns, Meyer and Smolan. Like Burns, the regeneration of history forms the basis for the story. The project's personal nature mirrors that of Meyer's projects, and the integration of technology and contemporary photographs resembles Smolan's work.
All of the works mentioned in this paper address a culture of one sort or another. Burns' work focuses on America while Meyer's examines U.S.-Mexican relations and his relationship to his parents. Smolan investigates Vietnam and the culture of cyberspace. I've explored my roots in Moravia. Dozens of culturally-based multimedia titles now are available, including "Mieko: A Story of Japanese Culture" that allows children to view ancient Japanese traditions in a modern day context (Holzberg, 1996) and "The Smithsonian's America," described as an interactive exhibition of American history and culture. Sub-cultures, such as cyberspace, also are being addressed. The "beat" culture is the subject of three new CD-ROMs produced by Voyager, Penguin Electronics and The Red Hot Organization (Gillen, 1995).
Multimedia manufacturers are responding to the public's desire to explore other histories and cultures. CD-ROM titles on history and geography topics lead the industry in sales (Womack, 1996). The preservation of family history and culture is becoming increasingly vital. Industry leaders such as Steven Speilberg, who has created a project to record the memories of holocaust survivors, and General Motors, who funds Ken Burns, are leading the way. But most important of all, the drive to preserve our culture is not being left in the hands of large corporate conglomerates, historical academies or established publishing houses. Students in Kathleen Duplantier's fourth-grade class at Abita Springs Elementary school produced a multimedia database profiling cultural diversity in Abita Springs, La. Native American, German, Hispanic, French, Italian and African-American settlers are included as well as a variety of ethnic foods, folk tales, crafts and housing styles. Students on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota have created a database called "HyperMyth" that tells cultural histories based on tales and legends of the Lakota (Sioux) people (Holzberg,1993). Students at McClintock Middle School in Charlotte, N. C., have created a database called "Where in the State Is Mecklenburg County." The database includes information on county personalities, agricultural crops, population statistics and geographic sites (Holzberg, 1993). The historical preservation of culture is occurring on all levels--local, regional and national.
More and more families are using videocams, point-and-shoot cameras and computers. A wealth of historical family data is being collected with no mainstream outlets for publication. Old photographs of long-lost relatives lie in shoe boxes in the attic. The rise of multimedia has created a climate that allows individuals to process historical data and create stories that will enrich generations to come.
References
Cripps, Thomas. "Historical Truth: An Interview with Ken Burns," American Historical Review, Feb.-Jun., 1995, v100, pp741-764.
Fowles, Jib. "Three Who Truly Made Radio: Ken Burns, 'Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio' (PBS)," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 1994, v14, pp219-223.
Gillen, Marilyn A. "Multimedia Gets Crazy for the Beats," Billboard, Dec. 9 1995, v107, n49, p64.
Green, Jonathan. "Pedro Meyer's Documentary Fictions," Aperture, Summer 1994, n136, p32.
Hansen, Eileen. "The House that Rick Built," Publisher's Weekly, May-June 1995, v242, p24.
Holzberg, Carol S. "Welcome to Our town, U.S.A.," Technology and Learning, Feb. 1993, v13, n5, p34.
Holzberg, Carol S. "Exploring World Cultures," Technology and Learning, March 1996, v16, n6, pp8-12.
Hilts, Paul. "Smolan's '24 Hours' Project Redefines Net Publishing," Publisher's Weekly, Jan.- Feb. 1996, v243, p20.
Jackson, Donald Dale. "Ken Burns puts his special spin on the old ball game," Smithsonian, April-Sept. 1994, v25, pp38-48.
Koman, Richard. "Photography-Based Multimedia," Communication Arts, August 1993, v35, n4, pp160-166.
Little, Cindy. "Repurposed content should involve more that shovelware," MacWeek, Feb. 24 1997, v11, n8, p23.
Lottman, Herbert R. "Rick Smolan's Latest Project: A Day in the Life of Cyberspace," Publishers' Weekly, Sep.-Dec. 1995, v242, p13.
Masin, Herman L. "Nine Innings," Scholastic Coach, December 1994, v64, n5, p10.
Robbins, Alan. "The Great Multimedia Debate: Is it possible to tell as good story interactively?," Newsweek, June 5 1995, v125, n3, p16.
See, Lisa. "Voyager, Apple in battle over bundled history CD-ROM," Publishers' Weekly, Feb. 20 1995, v242, n8, p109.
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Tibbetts, John C. "The Incredible Stillness of Being: Motionless Pictures in the Films of Ken Burns," American Studies, Spring 1996, v37, n1, pp117-133.
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Vaughan, Tray. "Multimedia: Making it Work," Osborne McGraw-Hill, 1994, p4.
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Weisberger, Bernard A. "The Great Arrogance of the Present is to Forget the Intelligence of the Past," American Heritage, Sept.-Oct. 1990, v41, pp97-102.
Womack, Simon. "Getting a bit big for their Roots?," Times Educational Supplement, June 28 1996, n4174, pC9.
Zoglin, Richard. "Feats of Progress," Time, Feb. 3 1992, v139, n5, p55.
Zoglin, Richard. "White Men Behaving Badly," Time, Sept. 16 1996, v148, n13, p76.
It is difficult to define a historical photograph. Technically, by the time the shutter has completed a pass over the film, the moment is history. By their very nature, all photographs are historical. Webster's New World Dictionary defines "historical" as something based on or suggested by people or events of the past. Still, no definitive time period is indicated. For the purposes of my research, it is sufficient to say historical photographs are those that have documented significant social change or those that were taken in a previous generation.
Likewise, the true meaning of the word "multimedia" is elusive. Multimedia has been defined as any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation and video delivered by computer or other electronic means (Vaughn, 1994). The definition is imprecise but sufficiently differentiates between traditional mediums such as books and new electronic mediums such as movies and CD-ROMs. When discussing historical photographs, it is important to discuss historical film in the same context. After all, they both are multimedia mediums, and film can be viewed as a series of moving photographs.
So how are historical photographs being used in documentary, multimedia work? In the past decade, Ken Burns, Pedro Meyer and Rick Smolan have been among the most influential producers of photography-based multimedia. Burns has concentrated his efforts in the area of historical presentation. Meyer's work has been of a more personal nature and Smolan has acted as an organizer of contemporary work. All three are producing documentary work through the integration of interviews, music, film, video, and historical or contemporary photographs. Because my work most closely resembles that of Burns, he is my primary focus. Burns chooses motion pictures as his form of multimedia presentation, I've chosen CD-ROM. In the end,we both are telling stories.
Storytelling
Australian Aborigines don't rely on written history. Instead, tribal elders have the privilege of verbally passing down stories to future generations. Storytelling is an art to the Aborigines. Inevitably,details are lost in the translation, but the essence of the story remains. Some would argue the same is true of American history. The facts associated with a historical event are infinite. Recording methods have improved, but throughout much of American history, they were primitive. Historical accuracy is always questionable. In addition, the rise of multicultural thinking attests to the growing realization that a lack of historical objectivity existed in the past. Racial stereotypes flourished with films such as D.W. Griffith's"Birth of a Nation" (1915) and David O. Selznick's "Gone with the Wind" (1939). But these movies were feature films, not documentaries. Documentaries are true, or are they? Documentary multimedia productions can be traced back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and Robert Flaherty's "Nanook of the North" (1922). It is a well-known fact that scenes were staged in the documentary. Nanook was asked to repeat routine acts in the summer season when the weather was less threatening. Although scenes were faked, we still gain a sense of life in the Arctic. Other notable documentaries followed,including Pare Lorentz's "Plow that Broke the Plains" (1936) and William Wellman's propaganda-laden "The Memphis Belle" (1944). But during the past century, documentary filmmaking has continued to mature from generations of dull travel and educational films to entertaining, informative works (Cripps, 1995).
The Canadian Film Board's documentary, "City of Gold," (1957) influenced a young Ken Burns. "When I first went to college in 1971, I saw 'City of Gold,' and it used the techniques of first-person storytelling and music in counterpoint to dozens and dozens of frozen images. The camera prowled over the surfaces, moving in and out, so that those dead photos came alive, in a way. I was impressed by that," Burns said (Tibbets, 1996). "City of Gold" told the story of the frontier town of Dawson in 1898, during the peak of the Klondike gold rush. Major television networks such as NBC soon began using many of the techniques seen in "City of Gold" for shows such as its "Project XX" series. "City of Gold" set the standard for good filmmaking and was a breakthrough for documentarians who used still photographs in their work.
Documentary storytellers used television and film as their primary outlets for several decades. But storytelling on film or television has different limitations than new media outlets. Television shows or movies are linear and play for a fixed amount of time. Today's question is how does the addition of interactivity affect the story? Rick Smolan was one of the first to venture into the unexplored field of digital storytelling. His "From Alice to Ocean" CD-ROM chronicled the voyage of Robyn Davidson, a young Australian woman who trekked across the Outback. Smolan used interactivity as part of the experience. "We gave people the opportunity to listen to Robyn or to interrupt her--to have a conversation with her. There are multiple paths through the same story. Readers can follow their own lines of curiosity," Smolan said (Koman, 1993).
But re-packaging content as Smolan did often proves ineffective and unsatisfying to the end user (Little, 1997). Mystery writer and multimedia designer Alan Robbins coined the term"perfluxity" and describes it as a feeling of drowning in information. He wonders if it is possible to tell a good story interactively. Robbins believes the linear approach to storytelling works well for memoirs, short stories, murder mysteries, fairy tales and essays. "You know where you're going and you can't wait to get there. The last thing anyone wants is 45 alternative endings in a digital 'Tale of Two Cities.' What we love about Dickens, for one thing, is his ability to pick the best endings," said Robbins (Robbins, 1995). Robbins believes directing the viewer's attention is an art, and attention to detail and the pace are what defines a master storyteller. The sense of being led is the joy of reading linear stories.
The impact of increased interactivity has yet to be studied. But, no matter what the medium, storytelling elements such as character development and plot are the ones that remain vitally important. That's why many new-media products are adapted from books. Ken Burns believes words are essential, but he also believes words can have a honorable, historical relationship with music, sound effects and the exploration of still photographs (Cripps, 1995). Even so, he is quick to point out the drawbacks of his medium. "I still think the greatest man-made machine in the world is the book, and in no way would I hope to supplant it. ... Film, really, is lacking for rigorous intellectual communication. It just doesn't have the tools because of its temporal nature. That is to say, it has duration," Burns said (Cripps,1995). He compares his films to ballets or symphonies that don't require much intellectual thought and describes them as very emotional, very visceral, very visual.
Thus, the nature of the multimedia delivery device used in storytelling can be overstated. While film and television shows can't be stopped, videotaped copies of them can, and many CD-ROMs simply start Quicktime movies that have the same linear attributes and limited duration associated with film.
Ken Burns
Ken Burns has been at the forefront of historical re-creation. His award-winning work often combines historical photographs with sound in an attempt to resurrect the past. Burns was born on July 29, 1953, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was only 11 when his mother died. He grew up with his father who appreciated history and studied anthropology at Columbia University. Burns attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., where he studied photography. He and his future wife, Amy Stechler, worked together during his senior year and produced a film about Old Sturbridge Village, Mass. He graduated from Hampshire College in 1975 with a bachelor of arts degree in Film Studies and Design.
After graduation, Burns formed his own film company, Florentine Films, and began producing his first film, "Brooklyn Bridge." The film, which took four years to make, eventually was nominated for an Academy Award. His second film was titled "The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God." In 1985, he followed with"Huey Long" and "The Statue of Liberty." Burns would spend the next five years on his most ambitious and successful project, "The Civil War."
The Civil War project began with 16,000 still photographs and 150 hours of film. The final presentation contained 3,000 photos. When it aired in September 1990, it became the most-watched documentary ever shown on public television. The average PBS prime-time rating was 2.2; "The Civil War" received 8.8. In the meantime, Burns also made films titled "Thomas Hart Benton" and "The Congress." In 1992, "Empire of the Air" was released. The film chronicled the history of radio. Two years later in September of 1994, his long-awaited series on baseball premiered on PBS. And finally, he helped produce a series titled "The West."
Choosing the Subject
A strange tension exists between Ken Burns and historical academicians. Burns loves history, particularly American history, but he believes most historians are ineffective storytellers. "We allow the Germanic academic model to overtake our academy and convince historians that they only need to speak to one another. ... The word 'history' itself gives away its primary organization. It's mostly made up of the word 'story,' and we've forgotten to tell stories" (Tibbetts, 1996). Conversely, some historians accuse Burns of seeking a consensus on historical events. But Burns believes he's not seeking a consensus history but instead an emotional consensus about history. "We seek to find a way in which we can include the diverse tributaries of our experience into something that might nourish the whole," Burns said (Cripps, 1995). He views himself as a translator of complex historical subjects and wants all people to enjoy American history. In this vein, he sees himself as an "emotional archaeologist" whose work is used to "provoke a kind of emotion and sympathy" within people (Tibbetts, 1996). "I can't be interested in a piece of history unless there's something I can loosely describe as emotional about it. I think the ordinary person feels that way, too. I think by allowing history to be defined and presented exclusively by the academy, we've bled it of its powerful emotional aspect," Burns said (Weisberger,1990).
History and controversy always are intermingled. Recently, some schools protested against Voyager publishing company's "Who Built America" CD because it introduced issues such as abortion, homosexuality and birth control (See, 1995). These schools are guilty of politicizing history more than Burns.
As is the case with most documentary journalists, Burns walks the line between historian and storyteller. He wants to make history interesting. "I'm a good enough storyteller to make history suspenseful and vital again, not freeze it in its tracks. All good history makes you wait on the edge of your seat, makes you watch from behind the trees, wondering if Pickett's Charge might not really succeed this time. ... That's the greatest moment-- that I can make people think something else might happen, rather than just the history they already know," Burns said (Tibbetts, 1996). But historical documentaries should be true. This simple fact limits creativity for the filmmaker. Unlike feature movies, the ending is apparent in advance. Herein lies the challenge for Burns. Burns crafts his movies in a manner that suspends the viewers' attention. In that suspension of what they know to be the outcome, they participate in a variety of experiences, both intellectual and emotional (Cripps, 1995).
Burns' approach is from the bottom up, using personal stories to humanize larger events. Because personal stories of the past can be similar to those of the present, a bond is formed between generations. In "The Civil War," Burns builds history through the diaries and letters of common Civil War soldiers. "It [film] can be our Homeric form, and we've tried to tell this particular Iliad, our Civil War, in a Homeric way, not only from the aerial perspective of the gods and kings but from the level of the spear carriers as well," Burns said (Weisberger, 1990).
This personalized technique also helps us understand the origins of historical events. In "The West,"Burns tells the story of Charles Goodnight, the Texas rancher who returned from the Civil War only to find cattle prices had plummeted. He drove his herd north and begun the tradition of great cattle drives (Zoglin, 1996). The story of one man reinforces the diligence and fortitude of an entire generation of westward-bound pioneers.
Except in the case of the Civil War, Burns chooses his subjects randomly and intuitively. He feels he was drawn to the Civil War because all his other films had elements that were predicated on events in the war. For example, the steel used to construct the Brooklyn Bridge was invented to produce weapons for the war. The man who completed the bridge, Washington Roebling, was a bridge-building engineer in the Union army. Burns believes the spiritual and psychological effect of the war caused a decline in the Shaker population. The Louisiana parish that Huey Long eventually served refused to secede from the Union. The resulting political environment supported Long's rise to power. Finally, the Statue of Liberty was originally intended as a gift to Mrs. Lincoln to commemorate President Lincoln's assassination and celebrate the preservation of the Union (Weisberger, 1990). Burns always asks a simple question with a very complex answer. "My one question in all my films is, simply, Who are we?" Burns said (Jackson,1994).
General Motors sponsors Burns' attempts to answer the question, yet he feels no pressure from the huge corporation. "I don't tell them how to make cars, they don't tell me how to make films," Burns said (Serafin, 1994). He states that sponsorship has no effect on his work and adds that he is in public television for two reasons. First, nobody can tell him what to do, and second, there is no commercial interruption (Cripps, 1995).
A study of visual techniques
Ken Burns uses still photographs in a manner that enlightens and entertains. He ventures inside the borders of a picture and selectively "burns-in" details into our memory. Burns can isolate a dozen minute details in a Polo Grounds crowd shot that shows reaction to a rookie's pennant-blowing mistake (Waters, 1994). Activity extends beyond the original framing of a scene. The camera can zoom out and reveal a visual irony or zoom in and focus on a person. It can pan and create anticipation. We see the feet, then the body and finally the face. We're never quite sure where a picture starts or stops. It's not surprising that Burns repeatedly has expressed his preference to tell his stories with still pictures rather than motion-picture footage (Tibbetts, 1996). Yet, Burns works in a medium of moving pictures, and at times, he chooses to combine still and moving pictures to create an attention-grabbing effect. In"Baseball," the swing of Ted Williams' bat and speed of Ty Cobb are punctuated by the intrusion of still photographs in a moving sequence. A Burns associate, Mike Hill, states that Burns frequently orders photographers to shoot live-action scenes in a manner similar to taking still photographs. "He wants rock-steady images, minimal camera movement and carefully composed frames. Sometimes, it's difficult to distinguish these shots from still photographs," said Hill (Tibbetts, 1996). In addition, Burns states that he would slowdown film in order to emphasize an effect. "It is, in fact, the slowing down of the Zapruder film which gave the Warren Commission access to the truth of the event," Burns said (Cripps, 1995).
Burns doesn't believe in recreations such as Civil War reenactments. But, he believes literal illustration isn't necessary either. Displaying General Grant's picture every time his name is mentioned is not warranted. Often, he uses photographs as general referents. The same photos of Lincoln and Grant appear in different contexts throughout the series. The same photo of Babe Ruth appears during his hitting heyday, his tantrums and his bout with cancer. But each time, the photo mysteriously seems appropriate in the given context (Tibbitts,1996).
Sound effects are crucial in relaying the visual message. Burns uses sound to imply actions. There are no photographs of Civil War battles, yet the use of sound makes viewers believe there are. We hear balls being hit in "Baseball," but we never see them in the photographs. Burns believes he is gifted and has the ability to look at a photograph and actually hear it. "I hear the loudspeaker and the static in a picture of Huey Long making a speech or the crowd and background noise when Babe Ruth hits a home run," Burns said (Jackson,1994). Inevitably, ethical questions arise. The sound that accompanies most photographs is representative and not actual. While Burns has no qualms about reading one soldier's letter while showing a picture of a different soldier, he hesitates to use the same battlefield scene for two different battles. "What keeps you straight is your sense of honor. It's the guiding light," said Burns (Weisberger, 1990). The essence of the story takes precedent over the creative technique or the medium. "Any historian is doing a re-creation, in a way. They are calling together some facts; they are ordering them in specific way," Burns said (Cripps, 1995).
Likewise, digital technology poses ethical dilemmas in regard to restoration of old photographs. Digital technology provides a means of eliminating distracting elements such as dust and scratches from old and weathered photos. After all, the elements may not have been present on the actual negative, and this is a commonly accepted darkroom procedure. But one must be careful not to lose the "feel" associated with an old photograph. Adobe Photoshop provides a variety of sharpening filters, but how sharp is too sharp? While elimination of blur and grain maybe desirable in contemporary photographs, these elements serve as a testament to the tools of photography for a certain time period and should not be callously discarded. In the final photograph of Lincoln, there is a crack in the plate that runs into his hair. The imperfection is more telling than the artist could have imagined (Thomson, 1990). In the end, restoration is a creative decision that each artist must make.
Editing
Good editing is crucial to good storytelling. Too much editing, and the story falls short. Too little editing, and it becomes tiresome. Enormous numbers of photographs and sound clips must be edited during the production of a Ken Burns' film. For "Baseball," Burns' staff photographed over 4,000 still photographs and examined thousands of newsreels. How does he decide which pictures to use? "I just shoot everything I can. I isolate each photograph and energetically explore its surface with my lens and later make decisions purely on the quality of the image and how I respond to what I find there. You could say I don't choose which ones to use, they usually chose me," Burns said (Tibbetts, 1996).
Burns collects material without regard for the finished product. Simultaneously, his writers prepare a script. Comparing the script to the available photos is a difficult task. Burns describes it as "an incredibly difficult horse-trading maneuver, in which you realize that a whole group of images won't be used because there's nothing [in the script], and a whole lot of words have to go because there's nothing to illustrate them" (Zoglin, 1992). Scenes are cut from films because they simply don't work visually. Time is finite, and the work must flow. Burns views the job of editing as an artistic endeavor. "You chip away at the block of marble, and three-fourths or more of it winds up on the floor as rubble, and it's not reconfigurable. What's left is the film," Burns said (Jackson, 1994).
Rick Smolan believes the editing process is a powerful argument for the advancement of new technology. The photographer and producer of the "From Alice to Ocean" CD-ROM likes to make all the editing decisions when presenting his work. "There are too many editors in the way. If you work for National Geographic, they can only devote so many pages to a story no matter how interesting it is. But with CDs, a story that deserves 500 pictures can have it," said Smolan (Koman, 1993).
Talking heads
Ken Burns likes to do his own interviews. He conducted three-fourths of the 65 interviews in "Baseball." Seldom were the interviews boring. The subjects naturally tended towards poetry and philosophy-- this tells us a good deal about Burns as an interviewer (Thomson,1993). Yet, Burns maintains that interviewees are not lead. "We've never said, 'We want you to say something like this.' I go to an interview with a wide range of questions and then cut it down," Burns said (Cripps, 1995). He also directs the character voices in his movies. In "Baseball," actors included Paul Newman, Tip O' Neill, Gregory Hines, Anthony Hopkins, Jason Robards, Gregory Peck, Julie Harris, Keith Carradine and Paul Winfield, along with commentators Mario Cuomo, George Will, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bob Costas and Billy Crystal.
Burns is a perfectionist and can be demanding. "We begin with 500 or 600 quotes, and we might have four or five readers read the same quote four or five different ways. They have to find the center. You don't want them going over the top dramatically. It's a high-wire act and some can't do it," Burns said (Jackson, 1994). He instructed the narrator, John Chancellor, to read up to 17 takes of a particular paragraph (Waters, 1994). The actor who played Lincoln was told to read the final sentence of the Gettysburg Address in the manner in which it was most likely delivered. The usual emphasis on "by," "of" and "for" was replaced with an emphasis on the subjects of the war, "the people." (Weisberger, 1990).
How important is music? "Baseball" includes 250 versions of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." "Music can determine a scene. I work on music from the get-go," saidBurns (Jackson, 1994).
Historical accuracy
In college, Ken Burns only took one history course -- in Russian history. Even though he consults closely with leading historians, he still is vulnerable to criticism of his credentials. "Take the great documentarian, Ken Burns. What does he really know about baseball? What kind of specialness did his researchers bring to the ballgame? ... If 'Nine Innings' had gone into extra innings, we'd have called it off because of lightness," spouts columnist Herman Maslin (Masin, 1994).
Some scholars have been critical of the historical accuracy of Burns' work (Fowles, 1994). Burns has been accused of having wide-ranging interests but no special expertise in radio history. In his film, "Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio," Burns focuses on three central characters: Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong and David Sarnoff. Jib Fowles of the University of Houston-Clear Lake contends that Burns himself follows a form of racism by excluding inventors who were not American. The Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who devised the wireless communication system and the Canadian Reginald Fessenden, who made it possible for voices and music to be sent over airwaves, are barely mentioned in the film.
Rick Smolan's work also has not escaped criticism from historians. Robyn Davidson's trek across the Australian outback was the subject of Smolan's National Geographic article. But Davidson maintains the objectivity of National Geographic's story is questionable. She believes the photographs are more representative of Smolan's trip than her own (Koman, 1993).
Burns maintains that it is difficult to represent all points of view. He points out the history of the West really is two stories. One deals with the inspiring taming of a new continent, and the other deals with the suppression of a native people (Zoglin, 1996). Furthermore, he believes there is no objective filmmaking. Pointing the camera in one direction excludes information in another. "I think that we have to remember that it's all selection. Just as the scholar, when he writes this sentence, he has not written a hundred million other sentences," Burns said (Cripps,1995).
While the quest for historical accuracy is noble, it is virtually unattainable. Facts are infinite and the means to record them weren't always available. More than a million photographs were taken during the Civil War. Not one is of a battle scene. Burns argues that every shot he used as a battle scene is, from a fundamentalist point of view, a lie. But the possibility of understanding the war increased immeasurably (Cripps, 1995).
Pedro Meyer
While Ken Burns strictly makes historical films, Pedro Meyer and Rick Smolan are using contemporary photographs in their multimedia projects. Pedro Meyer is one of Mexico's most respected photographers. In 1991, Voyager published Pedro Meyer's ground-breaking CD-ROM, "I Photograph to Remember." It is a narrative work combining 100 black-and-white photographs with a spoken narrative by Pedro Meyer. Meyer tells the story of his parents' struggle with cancer. Thomas Luehrsen produced the disc for Voyager. He recalls the recording session when Pedro showed him the photos. "I had a DAT recorder with me to use as a scratch recording, but it was so good that we used most of it in the final product. ... The product's virtue is its simplicity in content and in execution," Luehrsen said (Koman,1993).
"I Photograph to Remember" was a triumph in many ways. It firmly established CD-ROMs as a viable journalistic outlet. Production of the project required a minimal amount of resources. In addition, it ushered in the concept of "personal journalism." A certain arrogance exists among the journalistic community, similar to that of the historical academy. Journalists too often believe they are the only people qualified to report. In some ways, the average person is becoming a journalist. Not in the traditional sense, but the ability of the average person to disseminate information through outlets such as the World Wide Web or CD-ROMs is increasing daily. New family history and genealogy programs are hitting the market ,often in creative forms. "Echo Lake" allows users to store family history books on the shelves of "cabins." Stories in the book can be enhanced with personalized music, narration and video clips. Also available are "Family Tree Maker," "Expert Personal Roots" and "Family Ties" (Trivette, 1995).
Rick Smolan agrees. "My mother is turning 70 soon, and we kids are talking about taking all these pictures we have and putting them on disc and having the whole family narrate them. When the Oakland fire happened, I thought of all the families who lost their wedding pictures, their baby pictures. ... People will do this personal storytelling. And there will be stories that will be published that publishers would never touch," Smolan said (Koman,1993).
Why should we care about Meyer's parents, or Smolan's or mine? Their deaths have no impact on world events. Why should we care about a Czech family coming to America? First and foremost, these are good stories, and that's what journalism is all about. Second, larger issues are at stake, such as the plight of cancer victims or the struggles of immigrants. These types of stories may never see the light of day through traditional media outlets that are concerned with the financial bottom line.
Meyer's project is intensely personal, much as Eugene Richards' and Dorothea Lynch's "Exploding into Life." Nothing is more personal than recording the death of a loved one. Pedro Meyer says the title "I Photograph to Remember" explains his motives. "As a photographer who has entered a lot of other people's lives through my camera, I felt that if I could not capture the images in my own world, I didn't have the right to do it in other people's worlds," Meyer said (Koman, 1993).
The photography in Meyer's project is strong. Meyer's sense of caring is expressed repeatedly through photographs that focus on hands and arms. Fragile hands caressing torsos and hands with bulging veins reaffirm the sense of loss and desperation. His work could very well have been published in a newspaper or magazine. But it is the haunting narration that adds an extra dimension. We not only see the pain--we also hear it. Meyer has been a pioneer in the new field of digital storytelling. He believes CD-ROMs provide substantial benefits over other mediums. "Video doesn't have the quality in sound or image. You can't slowdown, stop or go back. And the narrative quality would be lost in a book," Meyer said (Koman, 1993).
Meyer's other major new media undertaking was "Truths and Fictions: A Journey from Documentary to Digital Photography." In 1987, Pedro Meyer traveled 25, 000 miles across the United States. He created 92 photo illustrations that were displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
Jonathan Green, the "Truths and Fictions" exhibition curator, states that Meyer is "perversely comfortable reprocessing discrete bits of photographic information into new photographic 'facts' in order to make his point...They [the photographs] draw their strength from their relationship to 'photographic reality'," ... "Meyer's photographs usher in a new reality, a new world of digital rather than visual truth" (Green, 1994).
Some would argue that Meyer's works are little more than concocted feature photos. They are art. They are illustrations, but they are not fact. They're no more poignant than photo illustrations of the past. The fact that they were done digitally simply makes them technically better. For all the digital manipulation hype, "Truths and Fictions" falls short of the much simpler "I Photograph to Remember."
Rick Smolan
Rick Smolan uses contemporary photographs in his projects. Some are repackaged works, such as his "From Alice to Ocean" CD-ROM. Nevertheless, he has been at the forefront in seeking out new outlets for documentary work. Smolan has experimented with CD-ROMs, the World Wide Web and the new frontier of self-publishing.
Smolan's most impressive project thus far has been the "Passage to Vietnam" CD-ROM. It includes more than 400 photographs taken by some of the world's most talented photojournalists on a week-long assignment in Vietnam. The project demonstrated an important alternative outlet for documentary photography. Smolan and his partner, Jennifer Erwitt, relied on the efforts of many others. "I bring together skilled people who can breathe life into the blueprints we've created," Smolan said (Hansen, 1995).
He attempted to make the technology as transparent as possible. "What I wanted to create was an experience where you could forget the technology and actually feel like you're on assignment right beside the photographer," Smolan said (Hansen, 1995). Unfortunately, Smolan's digital clone who walks on still photographs not only reminds us of the technology at work but annoys us as well.
Smolan's 'Day in the Life" series was hugely successful. He attempted to harness the same idea in his latest project, "24 Hours in Cyberspace." "We are expanding my 'Day in the Life' concept from documenting a single country to covering the entire world and from a traditional six-month book development schedule to the immediacy of same-day Internet publishing," Smolan says (Hilts, 1996).
During the 24 hours of February 8, 1996, 64 original stories were put online, while 21,221 people signed the visitor guest book of "24 Hours in Cyberspace." The web site (www.cyber24.com) received more than 4 million hits from places as far as Sydney, Tokyo and Johannesburg (Hilts, 1996). The project required a staff of 150 and six months to plan. Smolan sought huge corporate sponsorship. Kodak provided 9,000 rolls of film. Sun Microsystems provided more than 100 SparcStation computers, network servers and advisers, and Adobe systems provided copies of Photoshop and Acrobat. The logistics were enormous. But this volume of technology is unavailable to the average photojournalist. The size of the project makes one wonder if it is financially feasible for the average photojournalist to jump into the technological ballgame.
"24 Hours in Cyberspace" hoped to create online, real-time photojournalism on a global scale (Lottman, 1995). But, Smolan's web site didn't do much more than most news organizations' sites such as those of CNN or Time. They also are updated on a daily basis. For all the razzle dazzel, "24 Hours" didn't prove much.
The Future
In many ways, my project, "Dostal: The first generation of a Czech family in America," is a hybrid of techniques employed by Burns, Meyer and Smolan. Like Burns, the regeneration of history forms the basis for the story. The project's personal nature mirrors that of Meyer's projects, and the integration of technology and contemporary photographs resembles Smolan's work.
All of the works mentioned in this paper address a culture of one sort or another. Burns' work focuses on America while Meyer's examines U.S.-Mexican relations and his relationship to his parents. Smolan investigates Vietnam and the culture of cyberspace. I've explored my roots in Moravia. Dozens of culturally-based multimedia titles now are available, including "Mieko: A Story of Japanese Culture" that allows children to view ancient Japanese traditions in a modern day context (Holzberg, 1996) and "The Smithsonian's America," described as an interactive exhibition of American history and culture. Sub-cultures, such as cyberspace, also are being addressed. The "beat" culture is the subject of three new CD-ROMs produced by Voyager, Penguin Electronics and The Red Hot Organization (Gillen, 1995).
Multimedia manufacturers are responding to the public's desire to explore other histories and cultures. CD-ROM titles on history and geography topics lead the industry in sales (Womack, 1996). The preservation of family history and culture is becoming increasingly vital. Industry leaders such as Steven Speilberg, who has created a project to record the memories of holocaust survivors, and General Motors, who funds Ken Burns, are leading the way. But most important of all, the drive to preserve our culture is not being left in the hands of large corporate conglomerates, historical academies or established publishing houses. Students in Kathleen Duplantier's fourth-grade class at Abita Springs Elementary school produced a multimedia database profiling cultural diversity in Abita Springs, La. Native American, German, Hispanic, French, Italian and African-American settlers are included as well as a variety of ethnic foods, folk tales, crafts and housing styles. Students on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota have created a database called "HyperMyth" that tells cultural histories based on tales and legends of the Lakota (Sioux) people (Holzberg,1993). Students at McClintock Middle School in Charlotte, N. C., have created a database called "Where in the State Is Mecklenburg County." The database includes information on county personalities, agricultural crops, population statistics and geographic sites (Holzberg, 1993). The historical preservation of culture is occurring on all levels--local, regional and national.
More and more families are using videocams, point-and-shoot cameras and computers. A wealth of historical family data is being collected with no mainstream outlets for publication. Old photographs of long-lost relatives lie in shoe boxes in the attic. The rise of multimedia has created a climate that allows individuals to process historical data and create stories that will enrich generations to come.
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